


Spiral Down

by Abitscrewy



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Mental Institution, One Off, Short Story, Young Stein
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 08:12:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7750087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abitscrewy/pseuds/Abitscrewy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Electric shock 'therapy' isn't exactly therapy. These are Stein's thoughts and feelings as it happens for the first time. (My timeline for when different things happen in his life can be found in the Warped Mind fic)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spiral Down

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Young!Stein fic taking place in one of the years he was analyzed by doctors.

They push my head against the metallic table, telling me to calm down as if I have control over my heart rate. I only control how my face looks at this point, I’ll learn to control my heart later in life.

Right now, I’m only eleven; Struggling against rubber straps, yelling for them to leave me alone.. As if they’d stop. I’m violent, I’ve hurt doctors and students and even my friends. Sometimes I meant to, sometimes I didn’t. Though it doesn’t matter now, I’m still bound to what I fear may be my deathbed.  
Fear.  
Funny, that.

Electricity courses through me and my pain threshold immediately breaks. My insides churn and clench, my body convulsing without my knowledge or consent. I taste iron in the back of my throat, creeping upwards onto my tongue. Trying to breathe makes me cough it up, a stinging feeling in my throat due to the blood. I could feel my wavelength contort, trying to find a sense of what’s doing this to me. Trying to figure how to make it a little less awful.

But the machine is cold and unwilling, no soul to adapt to.

The doctors just stare through windows and masks, rubber clad and also unforgiving. Millions of thoughts burst through my mind at once. Why am I like this? Why am I violent? Why does it bring me such elation to hurt things? I enjoy seeing blood, but not my own. It frightens me to know that they finally caught me. After all these years they’re trying something new.  
They claim to want to understand what’s happening in my head. Maybe they just want to know how strong my wavelength is, or my mind. What are they searching for? I have such a low tolerance for pain but my soul is strong. It refuses to let me die, countering the electricity with my own. I’ve always had a knack for sparks.

I can see, vaguely, the shapes of doctors flinching and ducking as the energy goes out of control. I scream, my nails digging through the skin on my palm. I can feel my wavelength crackle through the room. Glass shatters, my soul expanding towards them. My pain continues to amplify it.  
The doctor slams his hand on the button to shut the thing off. My body is still violently writhing on the cold surface. I can’t scream anymore, blood, is all that’s in my throat. Internal bleeding, stemming from my weak lungs. My wavelength keeps growing, taking out the lights in this room and the next. Three doctors have fallen over. I managed to just catch it and it makes me grin. Blood seeps through my teeth, I start to laugh. Tears stream down my face. Or have they been there since this started?

Everything happened in moments. Maybe I was here longer? I’m still here…

I can’t believe I lived.

One of the few standing doctors comes to me with a needle, a sight I’ve learned to both accept and cringe at. At this point I’m tired, but not too tired to fight. My body is stronger than they thought. I’m still alive, still capable of thought.. Just barely.. A thought will appear and I’m aware of it.. But it doesn’t hold. I have to chase it. I have to remember constantly what I was thinking.  
This reaction, however, is instinctive. My violent tendencies at core. I try to bite him, but my head is still strapped down. I forgot about those. The needle digs into my cringing neck, my body resists for a moment before blackness envelops me.

I have time to try and think, but I can’t quite grasp it. It’s almost there, like a dream where you can almost get to your goal but can’t. My frustration pushes me to the edge, I’m sure I’m crying in my sleep right now. But how am I thinking anything? How am I doing anything? I can do things but I’m not aware of anything. Maybe I have grasped a thought, but I just can’t feel that I have.

Nothing is right.  
I see swirls of colors, condemning me to night terrors. My nightmares tear through faster than I’ve ever seen. I can’t even grasp their loose concepts. I’m just left with a feeling that something’s wrong. Rather that everything is wrong. I can feel my heart losing ground. I can just barely hear people talking. Nothing makes sense, I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe I do. Maybe it’s in here somewhere but everything is so blurred and contorted.

It finally hits me that I’ve been moved. My eyes open slightly to lots of doctors clambering over me. My hearing is all just this high-pitched noise. Everything else is strangely fuzzy, like they aren’t real. I’m able to move my hand, but not my arm. I suppose I’m still strapped to something. I’m not allowed free range around doctors. Why are there so many of them? One opens my eye wider and I try to pull away, but there’s still a surface there. It’s softer than the metal. I can’t even tell who this person is, but they’re shining a light in my eye. I can feel my left arm twitching. I hit a nerve in my hand with my nails before. Now it won’t stop.

Where are my thoughts.

It’s spiraling now. I can’t breathe, I feel suffocation and nothing else. It’s a wonder I can feel at all.  
I’m not sure what they injected me with but it’s awfully numbing.  
No,  
Stop,  
Think.

How do I think.. Was that a thought? What’s going on.. I don’t understand what’s happening.. But then it hits me. The light in my eye. Was I dead? I suppose my body isn’t that strong after all.. My soul is intact I think. I feel alive, unfortunately.

Maybe I’d prefer us to be dead.

Who was that?

I’m not new. I’ve been here a while. You never noticed my voice before among the others but whatever that was that they did to us made me stronger.

Us?

You’ve got lots in here. It’s not just you you know. I’m just more prominent now. We’re all you in different ways.

What do you mean- I can’t even hear, I can’t even think. I don’t–

Understand? You don’t understand?! Well tough luck.

What’s going on.. I recognize you both. I can almost see you, but I just hear you.. Never mind, go away, I need to think.

This is you thinking. This is us thinking back.

We died. They got us back so they can torture us some more in the name of science. Are they even learning anything?

Stop. Just stop. Nothing makes sense..

I feel breath stinging my lungs, coughing is all I know for a moment. The next thing I place is pain en mass. My body contracts, my eyes open wide. I’m not where I was. I’m in my room, there’s equipment everywhere. Doctors are muttering, I can just barely hear them. Something about me.

“We can’t do any more of these kinds of experiments for a while. We wore him down a lot with that one. He’s our only subject we have now. The only survivor.”

What does that even mean?

I’m being analyzed, not helped. They never wanted to fix me. They want to use me. They won’t even fix others, probably. I really don’t believe they would. Whatever it was they did to me did something awful. I can’t ignore some of the voices anymore. They keep talking to one another until it turns into shouting. Since I’m not strapped down, I curl up on my side. My knuckles press against my head and my knees come up to my forehead. I’m tired of being analyzed…

Finally I realize, I can think. That’s nice… I can grasp them again, sometimes. Sometimes they go fuzzy and I have to chase them down. Sometimes my left arm twitches.  
Oh hey.. There are bandages on my hand now.

I’m not in that awful jacket which is good, it means no doctors will be bothering me any time soon. I don’t mind. I want to be alone now…

I think I’ll always be alone..


End file.
